Summertime

One of this year’s boats, at it’s new home in Lake Placid.

2019 Launching

Last look at the bunch.

ONE WEEK!

Two Weeks Left!

 

Wooden Boat Magazine

Had a nice cameo appearance in the current issue of Wooden Boat Magazine .

The issue actually has two articles by my mentor, Hilary Russell, of the Berkshire Boat Building School.  I happen to lend Hilary a hand when he needed to check the seat placement of his New World Coracle.  He snapped some photos at the same time, and this one found its way into the article.  Unusually, I also got a mention in the caption, and a note that I am one of the instructors (along with Hilary) at the Wooden Boat School, in Brooklin, ME.

Two weeks into the spring trimester

Back at it.  Things are going along pretty well.  This is a time when there are lots of little bits and pieces to deal with: floorboards, rub rails, seats, thwarts, etc, but these are nearly done, and we will be installing inwales this week.

The Sassafras is coming along nicely.  Ready to glue on the decks.

This skin canoe is furthest along.
Ready to glue in the gunwales.

Using the CNC machine to personalize the thwarts.

For a number of years, we were getting these nice little bronze makers marks from a guy in England.  Alas, no more, so we've taken to doing this in a more personalized way for each builder on the little DIY CNC machine we have in the shop. Since this particular CNC machine zeros off the lower left corner of the work space, rather than the center, this can sometimes be tricky - the second photo below shows that we add some blocking around the thwart and plot the origin based on our measurements. I suppose we could cut the thwart itself AND the design at the same time, but for us its just easier to band saw out the thwart.

A test carve of one idea
for the thwart markings

We did this one on the decks of the Sassafras:
the full school seal.

Gluing up the floorboards.

Last Week of the Winter Trimester

The Sassafras 16 is glassed inside and out.  Next, we will install the inner gunwale rail and start closing in the bow and stern with decks and trim.

The stem and gunwales and breast-hooks on these boat get locked together with a little thickened epoxy. Then we shape the end and round it over to accommodate the bronze stem band.

A couple of the guys have begun cutting out and shaping their thwarts.

And some are still finishing the lashing of the ribs.  All the steaming-bending is done, though!

First canoe off the forms.

With all but one rib in place, it was high time to take this boat off of the forms. This makes it a bit easier to get in and lash, but mostly it is fun to really appreciate how light this boat will be.

Sassafras 16 with gunwales in place.

I like to say this is when we put ALL of our clamps on display.

With the gunwales in place, we will be ready to turn this over an really go to work on the hull - filling the lap-stitch joint, cleaning up the ends and sanding everything, in preparation for the glassing of the hull.

Well underway on the new crop of boats

At Salisbury, the boat building season starts around the first of December.  We use the fall trimester to schedule students, order supplies and boat kits, if necessary.  This year, when the dust settled, we have five students making boats: four skin-on-frame, double paddle, low-seat canoes and one Sassafras 16 canoe from Chesapeake Light Craft.

One Chesapeake Light Craft kit boat - a Sassafras 16

The skin-on-frame boats are built completely from scratch; we fabricate all the parts in the wood shop, from templates and recorded dimensions.  I actually don't have a set of plans, but have a number of sets of forms.  The boat we build is essentially the one described in Hilary Russell's book, Building Skin-on-Frame Double Paddle Canoes which I helped design and edit.

Sassafras, further along

Stringer ends trimmed, ready for lashing

Lashing ribs to stringers